Reflections on Class (October 25)

Instead of a regular class we toured the special collections, preservation, and conservation areas of Bird Library. Ken Lavender showed us some amazing things including:
-Cuneiform tablets (4,000 years old)
-Papyrus from the time of Cleopatra (sad it won't last another 2,000 years)
-Book of Hours- beautiful illustrations, the blues and reds were still so vivid. Very interesting to learn that the greens have faded because they contained iron and that shade was actually damaging to the pages
-A page from a Gutenberg Bible
-Laws of the Sea- (1633?)- interesting to note that this was bound in pigskin, which lasts longer than calfskin, or sheepskin
-Gulliver's Travels (1725)
-Collected Work of Thomas Paine (1792)- this edition was owned by John Madison
-Origin of Species (1859)- first edition- did not realize that this book was still banned in Kansas
-Alice in Wonderland-first edition
-William Morris published book covered in jewels- never seen a book covered in gems that was definitely a first. If only they could find the book bound in diamonds that was made for the Titanic.
-An artist book created as a work of art in 1992 to house the diary of the artist's grandparents who survived Auschwitz. There are two books entitled 71125 and 71126 in this work.
(As a quick note sorry if not all of these information is correct, I might have missed some of the dates and names while drooling over these priceless bits of history)
The tour also included a look at preservation. This part of the tour was also very interesting. I was especially interested to learn about the shrink wrapping of volumes that don't circulate. I had come across some on the shelves before and wondered how that worked. It was also interesting to learn about the different kinds of binding and restoration that go on in the library. Sorry, I'm not providing more details here I was able to take notes during Ken Lavender's' presentation, but it was harder to during the other presentations because we were standing. I think one of my favorite parts of the lecture was seeing the re-creation of Byzantine book binding. The creativity and work that went into it was so fascinating. Overall the tour was vastly interesting and even unforgettable in some ways.